Hello all,

As the title sugests i have made a rather stupid mistake of loading 500 .243 cases with Winchester Large Rifle Magnum primers!

The load i use is not a hot load, 43.5 gns or AR2209 behind a 80gn pill.

I have fired 1 round VERY CAUTIOUSLY and there where no obvious signs of excessive pressure.

Can i safely use these loads? What will the effect be on the load and the rifle? If anyone knows exactly what the effects will be or would even like to hesitate a guess i would greatly appreciate it.

Condolences on having 499 of these left. I would contact the powder mfg. and ask the same question. There are also a couple test labs that will do pressure measurements on loads for something like $50-70 (ANYBODY OUT THERE REMEMBER THE WEBSITE??). Personally I would quarantine these until I found out. If I had 50 I would probably pull the bullets and start over but 500 is a considerable pile.

Thanks Fred,

It is all of my fire formed brass and if it was only a small amount i would simply toss them. With a hunting trip comming up though i'm unsure if it is safe and practical to use them or if it's back to factory rounds.

Contacting the manufacturer is a good idea, i will do. With the way the legal system is these days i doubt they will be giving me any good news though.

Contact Accurate. I just looked on their web site and don't see that powder listed for the .243.

Update: Guess this wasn't Accurate powder after all - shows what happens when you guess rather than know!

If you truely are several grains under maximum, I would not worry a lot about it. That would be the standard advise when substituting a component, back off several grains and work up again. The most useful indicator of high pressure when a component is substituted like you did is velocity, so run a few over a chronograph and see if you get fairly normal velocities.

Good luck.

Just looked through my Accurate reloading manual and can find no listing for 2209 powder. Is this the correct powder number?

I'll back up what MikeG said here. The chronograph, if you have one available, will tell you if you've had a dramatic increase in pressure.

Another method I would be comfortable with, provided your load is actually under maximum, would be to fire for group and see if your point of impact has changed drastically.

AR2209 is an Australian powder it has a burning rate equivalent of IMR4350, W760, H414/H4350, Tu 7000 and N204.

See here http://www.adi-limited.com/handloaders-guide/equivalents.html

I don't have a chrongraph available but i can compare point of impact with factory loads.

Testing point of impact would only be telling, and of limited use in general, if you where comparing it to the same load with the standard primer. I was thinking that you had been firing this load all along and probably had your rifle zeroed for it.

In the absence of a chronograph, I think I would use the old standards of pressure guessing: sticky extraction, case head expansion, case lengthening, and primer flattening. While these are not really good indicators, they will tell you something. I have swapped primers out on many loads trying to find the "perfect" load. Starting over of course from start, and I have yet to find a situation in rifles where the primer made any real pressure difference. I'm not saying you won't run into problems by going from a standard to a magnum, it is just that whenever I have switched primers and worked back up I have ended up right back where I started from, maybe gaining 50-100 fps on occasion, but still no pressure signs. I did find in my Ruger NO. 1 .22-250 that by switching FROM a magnum primer TO a standard primer, velocity went UP by about 125 fps and ES went down by half. I usually load magnum primers in everything just to keep things simple, but when I ran into a problem of loads going a lot slower than I thought they should I called Sierra and they suggested I at least try the standard primer. Bingo! They are still slower than I would like, but at least they are faster than they were and shoot a bit better. Nothing is absolute.
Now, swapping out bullets is another story. Early in my reloading days I swapped out a Sierra 6mm bullet for a Nosler Partition. In the Sierra load all looked normal, no signs of pressure, so I just dumped a Nosler on top. I had to beat the bolt open with a rubber mallet. Lesson learned.
You said you shot one and it looked normal. If me, I would shoot at least 10 and examine them all very closely. If there is any flattening of the primer, cratering, case head flattening, excessive case lengthening, anything abnormal, then I would pull and start over. If on the otherhand, they all look and function normally like I think they will, don't worry about it.
I had a guy tell me early in my days of reloading that by switching to a magnum primer from a standard primer is like adding an additional one grain of powder. In most cases I would say that is about right, but of course, not always. Let your cases tell you what is going on. Since you are still under maximum load, I wouldn't sweat it in the absence of pressure signs.

Thanks Big Bore,

I'm going to go fire off a few of these now and see how they go. I'll let you know what i find if anything.

I have contacted the powder manufacturer but have yet to hear back from them.

I hate to say this, but if you are working up loads with a relatively uncommon (and especially if surplus) powder, then you better get a chronograph!

If you are going to use the stuff without a chronograph then I encourage you to stay well away from what you think is a 'max' load. Most high-pressure signs occur way beyond what you really want to reach. Sort of like your speedometer isn't working so you drive faster till you get a speeding ticket.

If you have an accurate micrometer then it may be worthwhile to compare case head diameter and 'pressure ring' measurements with factory ammo, especially if the brass is the same brand.

The assurances that one powder is 'like' another are pretty risky. Powders change their behavior somewhat depending on the actual cartridge. It does not take long to find examples where powder "A" seems to be faster than powder "B" in one cartridge, but the order is reversed in another cartridge. Even lot to lot variations can amount for more difference than you would like.

Anyway... not to be alarmist (and I don't think that you're being irresponsible, either, in fact you've shown some good judgement by researching the issue) but more of a general discourse on using powders where there is not a large body of data from several sources.

Invest those savings from the bulk purchase of powder in a Chrony....

One more thing - comparing point of impact with factory loads won't tell you much of anything. Too many variables....

Hope you get this figured out.

Thanks Mike,

A chrony is on the "to-get" list when the finances become available.

I went up and shot 20 of these "incorrect" loads and everything seems to be working fine. There are no "obvious" signs of pressure on the cases, point of impact is comparable to factory rounds.

I have got access to a good micrometer and will measure some of my fired cases against fired factory cases (all of my brass is from the same batch of Remington ammo).

In regards to the powder, it is not so much a bulk powder but the most common powder in Australia. I have a few mates who also reload the .243 and they all use AR2209. ADI powders are by far the most prevelant in Australia. It is the only brand of powder carried by some small gunstores.

MikeG,
I'm pretty sure that ADI is the company that makes Hodgdon Benchmark and Varget.

Didn't mean to imply that the powder was junk, or not legitimate, but just to say that it's pretty hard to make a judgement on the load when we've never heard of it and the companies here don't list data.

There are a number of military surplus powders for sale over here with some rather vague load recommendations... hence the caution. Example, surplus WCC820 is often compared to H110 - yet everyone who has posted velocity data (that I have seen) indicates it is a fair amount faster. So, in that example, if someone were to substituted a max H110 load for the same amount of WCC820, bad things could happen.

Yes Australian powders can be very good. Quite fond of Varget myself which I believe originated as Mulwex 2208 or something like that.

Just trying to be cautious. We like our forum members to have all of their fingers.... makes it a lot easier to type!!!

People will also read these posts and even if they don't have the exact same problem, may try to use the same methodology to solve their problems. So I always try to keep that in mind when replying.

Sounds like you are doing OK with the loads. What are you planning on hunting?

Didn't mean to imply that the powder was junk, or not legitimate, but just to say that it's pretty hard to make a judgement on the load when we've never heard of it and the companies here don't list data.

Just trying to be cautious. We like our forum members to have all of their fingers.... makes it a lot easier to type!!!


Point well taken Mike, i too am quiet fond of all my fingers and 20/20 vision, keeping that intact is a priority for me ;-).

Sounds like you are doing OK with the loads. What are you planning on hunting?

Nothing specific, i'm going on a 2 month working/shooting/fishing holiday. Main things i shoot are Roo's, Rabbit's, Foxes, Freal cats, Quail, Pig's, Chital Deer and Red Deer. In order from most likely to get a shot at NOT what i want to shoot at.

Roo's are a dime a dozen and you never have a hard time finding them but after shooting a couple of hundred they do get rather boring.

I've never taken a shot at a decent Chital which is what i will mainly be hunting.

Sounds like the short answer is "everything!" What is a Chital?

Sounds like the short answer is "everything!" What is a Chital?

Chital are small deer we get in Oz, i believe they are native of India but don't quote me on that.

Here is a picture of a couple shot in Oz.

http://www.austdeer.com.au/fpdb/photos/category_news.asp?IDCategory=7&page=1

Oh, OK, hey we have a few of those here in Texas also. I believe that they are called Axis deer (not sure why the different name). Lots of exotics here have been brought in from around the world for hunting.

Hi, Gents:
According to the Oxford dictionary, Chital is the Hindu name for the Axis deer. There's more deer with two names or two deer with one name. An elk in Scananavia is a moose in North America and a North American elk is also a Wapiti in North America and a Red Deer in Europe. :D

Anyone wanting to know a bit about Chital in India should read Jim Corbett's "Man-Eaters of Kumaon", one of the finest hunting books ever.

Bye
Jack

We have only got 7 different types of deer in Oz which doesn't make it that hard to get a "Grand Slam". Of all the deer though we do not have white tail which i beliee are one of the most common in US yes?

They tried them over here for a while but they didn't take up to the conditions very well.

I'm surprised by that. We have whitetails pretty much everywhere.... in about every condition you can imagine, from swamps to forests to plains to fairly dry country, and even pretty well right in the middle of cities! I guess they don't do so well in the tall mountains or deserts, though. Maybe you need some mule deer (a relative of the whitetail that lives in dryer, more open country)?

Hey, Mike -

Don't forget the Coues whitetail we have that hang out in the most arid parts of the Sonoran Desert you can find.

I'm surprised they didn't take to the conditions as well, maybe if a bit more thought went in to introducing them they would of faired better.

As for Mule deer we don't have them either.

Deer species in Australia include Chital, Fallow, Red, Sambar, Rusa and the little hog deer.

Back to the primers. I load for magnum pistols and have found thru experimentation that the CCI mag primers give 50fps increase over CCI standard primers with same powder chg, bullet and gun.

Stixx posted the link to ADI Smokeless Powders. I clicked on it and, like Stixx indicated, AR2209 has a burinig rate equivalent to IMR4350, W760, H414, H4350, Tu7000 and N204. Here are some maximum loads published in the Speer Reloading Manual Number 13 for the .243/80gr SP and some of those powders:

H4350, 46.0gr, 3279fps, CCI200 Standard Rifle Primer.
IMR4350, 45.0gr, 3226fps, CCI200 Standard Rifle Primer.
W760, 44.0gr, 3199fps, CCI250 MAGNUM RIFLE PRIMER.
H414, 44.0gr, 3188fps, CCI250 MAGNUM RIFLE PRIMER.

Ruger M77 MK II 22" barrel.
Brass: Winchester.
Primer: as indicated

At 43.5 grains of AR2209, it looks like you are .5 to 2.5 grains below some or the other powders in the same burning rate range.